A traditional method of producing milk chocolate is by mixing milk powder together with cocoa liquor or cocoa nibs, sugar, and cocoa butter, followed by refining, pasting, conching and tempering.
Another traditional method of producing milk chocolate is by condensing and drying either liquid milk or milk concentrate together with sugar and cocoa liquor under vacuum and at elevated temperatures to produce a chocolate crumb powder and then mixing the chocolate crumb powder with cocoa butter, followed by refining, pasting, conching and tempering.
Conventional milk chocolate contains about 30-31% fat. It may contain more or less but rarely less than 27% fat. Calorie-conscious consumers demand a chocolate with lower calories and one way of reducing the calories in chocolate is by reducing the fat content. However, there are technical difficulties in reducing the fat content of milk chocolate without causing the quality, taste and texture to be inferior to that of conventional milk chocolate. For example, reduced fat milk chocolates usually give a dry and coarse mouthfeel and the viscosity is too high for normal handling during preparation.